TECH AGE GIRLS 2011 EXCHANGE NEWSLETTER

‖

We develop our

communities

by developing

ourselves

―

Tech Age Girls in Kyrgyzstan is implemented through Global Connections and Exchange, which is a program of the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and the Digital Youth Dialogue program, which

is funded by the United States Embassy in Kyrgyzstan.

Participant Profiles

9th grader, School No. 8, Naryn TO: Rutland High School, Rutland, Vermont

Blog: http://amanda.kloop.kg Leadership projects in Kyrgyzstan: “No Smoke with IT,” a unique advocacy campaign combining IT training and awareness of the dangers of smoking Highlight of trip: In Rutland, Zhaparova met and received advice from the city’s Mayor as well as the Treasurer, the highest ranking official in Rutland

Amanda Zhaparova

10th grader, School No. 2, Karakol TO: Sabino High School, Tucson, Arizona

Blog: http://dariia.kloop.kg Leadership projects in Kyrgyzstan: Training fellow students to make effective use of inter-net resources and new web tools Highlight of trip: Learning about community mapping from graduate stu-dent Kristin Wisneski, coor-dinator of an at-risk youth technology transfer program at the University of Arizona

Daria Azina

11th grader, School No. 7, Naryn TO: Webster Groves High School, Webster Groves, Missouri

Blog: http://takazag.kloop.kg Leadership projects in Kyrgyzstan: Teaching IT skills to girls, while having serious, open discussions about bride kid-napping in Kyrgyzstan Highlight of trip: Explaining her work in TAG and learning about being a woman in science while speaking to NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus — In Russian!

Zina Kabylbek kyzy

Zina Kabylbek kyzy, Amanda Japarova, and Daria Azina, three TAG Alumni, came to the United States in October 2011 to meet successful women leaders, see how youth use technology to benefit their education, and to gain first-hand experience in how American youth participate in community service and extracurricular activities in their schools and neighborhoods. As they took this in-formation in, they also gave presentations to their host classmates on Kyrgyzstan’s culture.

The exchange participants arrived in Washington, DC on October 11, where they spent several days in training sessions and meetings with role models and teachers. Early in the morning on October 15, the three girls went their separate ways to their host sites for nine days to learn about life, cul-ture, technology, and community service at schools who have participated in online projects with Kyrgyzstan After arriving in Webster Groves, 2010 TAG alum-na Kabylbek kyzy, from Naryn’s School No. 7, was a visiting student at Webster Groves High School. In addition to her activities at school, Zina learned a great deal about women and life in and around St. Louis. During a trip to the city’s Sci-ence Center, she met NASA astronaut Sandra Mag-nus at a presentation. “[When I entered the presentation room,] a man asked me if I was a future Astronaut, and I thought it was a joke, so I replied, “yes, I am!”, Kabylbek kyzy explained. Introducing herself to Magnus she explained the Tech Age Girls program to the Astronaut “I was so inspired!” wrote Ka-bylbek kyzy about the encounter.

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From Kyrgyzstan to the United States: Three Tech Age Girls Promote Cross-Cultural Understanding

Amanda Zhaparova of Naryn gives a presentation on Kyr-gyzstan to US high school students in Rutland, Vermont

ABOUT TECH AGE GIRLS

The Tech Age Girls (TAG) pro-ject addresses the lack of skilled women in the field of information technology (IT) by encouraging and training the most promising young female computer specialists. Through a process in which they have

the opportunity to further develop IT skills, learn from successful female leaders, and design their own community projects, participants take their first steps toward entering one of the most prom-ising and dynamic fields in the global economy.

IREX started the Tech Age Girls project in Kyrgyz-stan in 2010 and held its second round in 2011. From June 27 to July 9, 2011 the efforts of the Tech Age Girls (TAG) project culminated in a two-week conference for 34 outstanding young women throughout Kyrgyzstan who developed their IT and leadership skills. These talented, driven girls then returned to their homes, where they are us-ing their new skills and experiences to implement projects that will benefit their communities. To-gether, the TAG implementing partners have laid the foundation for a talented group of young women to shape their country’s future.

TECH AGE GIRLS

Host teacher Nicholas Kirschman played dual roles, also hosting Kabylbek kyzy with his family – wife Christine, daughter Bethany, and their two pet dogs. Kirschman gave the TAG an extensive tour of the St. Louis area, visiting the famous Arch landmark, attending a pumpkin harvest, trips to several of the city’s museums, and an in-troduction to baseball during the World Series tournament, in which St. Louis’ team, the Cardi-nals, competed and won. Reflecting on the expe-rience, she shared, ―I am their new fan!‖

Meanwhile, in Tucson, Arizona, Daria Azina, a 10th grader from Karakol, Kyrgyzstan, gave 24 presentations about Kyrgyzstan to classes at Sabino High School-reaching approximately 600 students at Sabino, arranged by host teacher David Kukla with the gracious support of his col-leagues Carl Dickason and Irina Kamenkovich. Azina had several rewarding tours and activities at institutions in Tucson. During her week there, Azina met with University of Arizona Graduate Student Kristin Wisneski and Professor Barron Orr, of the university’s Office of Arid Lands Studies (OALS). At OALS, Azina learned about youth-driven Community Asset Mapping, and a new pro-gram working with youth volunteers to design and develop a mobile application for youth to identify

and solve problems in their community. Wisneski trained Azina in how to use a GPS device to navi-gate an unfamiliar area and how to mark way-points to an online map service, followed by a session with the youth volunteers, discussing their favorite online tools for sharing ideas and creat-ing community change. In Tucson, Azina stayed with the Larsons – Host Robert and his daughter KJ, a student at Sabino High School. Shadowing KJ at Sabino and through-out the southwestern city, Daria was welcomed into a circle of friends, taken to her first Ameri-can football game, and took a long walk through Tucson’s Sabino Canyon with the family; she even had her first taste of authentic Mexican food dur-ing her stay.

In Rutland, Vermont, Amanda Japarova of School No. 8 in Naryn visited the campus and community of Rutland High School, hosted by GCE partner

TAG alumna Zina Kabylbek kyzy carves a pumpkin to cele-brate the upcoming Haloween festivities in Webster

Groves, Missouri

“I am personally inspired by our interaction [with TAG Daria Azina] and know that my heart is definitely committed to more ex-periences where I can have similar tech transfer exchanges like this one.” — Kristin Wisneski, Graduate Student, University of Arizona

Daria Azina with a youth volunteer of the Akshen pro-ject in Tucson, learning how to use a GPS device

TECH AGE GIRLS

teacher Ron Eisenman. During her visit, she gave 18 presentations at her school, shadowed the dra-ma club and a community church’s charity opera-tions, and met with local government and busi-ness leaders. Zhaparova lived with the Reilly family – hosts Sean and Karen, and their daughter Erin. The Reillys exposed Zhaparova to culture and daily life in Vermont, including a visit to a museum in Burlington, tours of the town, a trip to their local church to observe a youth community service ac-tivity, and lots of quality time with the family and their five pets.

From Education to Inspiration: The Tech Age Girls Return to Washington, Meet with Leaders in the Nation’s Capital

Amanda Zhaparova spends quality time with the host family dog in Rutland

Though sad to leave their host families and school communities, the Tech Age Girls were right back in action the day after their return to Washing-ton. During the week of October 23, they met nu-merous leaders hailing from the business, govern-ment, and non-profit worlds. The first meeting upon their return was with Ve-ronica Zeitlin, Foreign Affairs Officer at the Unit-ed States Agency for International Development (USAID), with significant experience in the fight against human trafficking worldwide. Zeitlin talked about the goals and activities of her de-partment, pointing out that they work to improve women’s equality and empowerment, because when conditions for women’s economic success improve, the benefits are more likely to ―trickle down‖ to the whole family. The TAGs were inspired by Zeitlin’s choice to fol-low her beliefs and choose a more personally re-warding career. ―During the meeting it was hard not to notice how Ms. Zeitlin spoke about the ac-tivities of her department with such strong dedi-cation. I really admire her, because she loves what she does,” commented Zina Kabylbek kyzy.

While in Washington D.C., the TAGs also met with staff members from the offices of Congressman Russ Carnahan (Missouri) and Congressman Raul Grijalva (Arizona) to discuss the importance of supporting young women and the use of technolo-gy in development. The girls shared their experi-ence about their visit to US high schools and how youth use technology at school in the United States and Kyrgyzstan.

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The Tech Age Girls meet Representative

Raúl Grijalva of Arizona and his counsel Joseph Mais

TECH AGE GIRLS

On October 24, the girls met Seema Jalan from Women Thrive Worldwide. Jalan explained that women are at the greatest risk of poverty and domestic violence, and described how Women Thrive pushes the US government to change this. Listening to her stories about how how Women Thrive works to improve the lives of women in developing countries, the TAGs got some new ide-as for their future community projects. Kabylbek kyzy reflected that “I understand now that we don’t need to wait for help; we can start this work today. We can help women in our communi-ty to build a better future with the resources available and the skills we received in TAG.”

Seema Jalan of Women Thrive International with the TAGs

TAGs Explore Student Journalism in the United States at Annandale High School

During their time in Washington, the TAG partici-pants got a behind-the-scenes tour of Annandale High School’s journalism program, thanks to jour-nalism teacher Alan Weintraut, and the editorial team of the A-Blast, Annandale’s student newspaper.

During the visit, the A-Blast’s Co-Editor in Chief CJ Aftergut, Managing Editor Nikki Contrino, and Web Editor Liz Wilson took the girls through the process of establishing a student newspaper, ex-plaining the work that goes into the process from start to finish, and gave concrete advice on how

the girls might create their own student journal-ism programs with limited resources, recommend-ing building an electronic-only site with blogging software as a great way to begin. Julia Hanneman, the faculty head of the school’s yearbook team, also gave the TAGs a unique look into student publishing, explaining the role of a yearbook and using it as a great resource to give the girls a first look into the kind of extracurricu-lar choices American students have in their schools. Kabylbek kyzy wrote of the yearbook pro-gram on her blog, saying, “I was really glad to learn about yearbook, because I have never heard about it before. I think it is [a] really great idea to make the book, because every year the book changes..., all students are involved and take pic-tures [of the school year!]” The visitors from Kyrgyzstan were particularly ex-cited to learn of Annandale’s Muslim Students As-sociation, giving them a better idea of the diversi-ty often found in schools in the United States. An-nandale High School is a unique example, with a student body hailing from over 90 countries and speaking over 50 languages at home.

Liz Wilson, Web Editor of Annandale High School’s student newspaper, gives Zina Kabylbek kyzy a

tour of the newspaper’s online presence

TECH AGE GIRLS

During the Tech Age Girls’ final week in the Unit-ed States, they paid a visit to a local woman-owned and operated business, meeting CEO and co-owner Siobhan Green and her staff at Sonjara, Inc. Sonjara is a small consulting company that specializes in developing and bringing internet technologies to organizations and groups around the world for social benefit.

The conversation started around the staff’s expe-rience running a technology company as women in the context of the United States. As Green re-counted on her company’s blog, “We talked - about our experiences as women, as mothers, as wives and partners, as employees and students. We shared stories about how we learned from our failures, how we learned by do-ing and not knowing exactly what we were doing. The challenges and the opportunities we faced along the way, such as skuzzy guys lurking in in-ternet forums, computer geeks looking at us like we were another species, the formal and infor-mal messages about "girls being bad at math and science", and the expectation that we would not be responsible for substantial income contribu-tions in our families.” Green and her staff explained that even in the United States, working in technology is an uphill battle for women, but it is worth the extra strug-gle. Green explained that the obstacles women encounter inspired her to build a supportive office culture to families and equality, cognizant of the ―second shift‖ one partner—most often the wom-an—usually has to work when returning home every day.

At Sonjara, they explained, technology is a tool for empowerment of women, enabling them to create flexible and mobile workplaces while they balance family and professional responsibilities. The most impactful part of the girls’ visit, howev-er, came as the staff imparted some of their own wisdom upon the girls, looking back on their own lives in and out of the workplace. Their advice: Choose well in whom you marry, and make that relationship belong to the two of you equally before anyone else; Own your own choices, and acknowledge the benefits and consequences of each of them; and most importantly, failure is an option -- failure is the best way to learn from having tried something new.

The girls agreed that the two hours they spent at Sonjara were by far the most impactful meeting they had. For Zina Kabylbek kyzy, the advice of not settling for early marriage just because an offer arrives, and giving oneself time to study and achieve her own career stood out: “[Sonjara CEO Green] said that we must study in order to get everything we want, and also I really liked what she said: “It is very difficult to find a person with whom you’ll be ready to live forever”… Yeah, I agree with her even [if] I’m a little girl. I was thinking a lot after these words.”

Exchange Participants Gain Invaluable Wisdom on Careers, Life from Woman-Owned Business

“People may tell you you can be either mothers or leaders. This is a false choice. Change the context, and you change the choices available to you.” —Siobhan Green, CEO of Sonjara, Inc.

Sonjara Inc’s staff share wisdom with TAGs

TECH AGE GIRLS

On October 27, the last full day of the Tech Age Girls’ exchange to the United States, the girls col-lected, reflected upon, and presented their thoughts on all the work that had gone into each step of their journey at an event facilitated by United States Institute for Peace’s Gender and Peacebuilding Center Director Kathleen Kuehnast, titled ―Expanding Youth Horizons through Tech.‖ At this event, Kabylbek kyzy, Zhaparova, and Azina presented to about 20 international devel-opment professionals on their experiences in the United States, giving comparisons of the use of technology in American classrooms and their own, as they underscored the importance of technology programs like Tech Age Girls in their peers’ per-sonal and educational development.

During the roundtable, Zhaparova explained that in Kyrgyzstan, gaining internet access--and the knowledge to use it--has immensely helped her and her classmates conduct school research. Her local library lacks a wide selection of books, and so when her class is given a research assignment, in the past the students would clamor for the same handful of outdated encyclopedia volumes. Today, they all know how to use the internet, and are able to quickly find current information from their school computer lab.

The session concluded with TAGs Kabylbek kyzy and Azina presenting on the differences between the ―American ideal‖ of technology use in the classroom, and ―the Kyrgyzstan reality‖ -- often, technology that may appear crucial to a classroom in the United States, may not be effective or real-istic given challenges in Kyrgyzstan over budgets, internet reliability, or even electricity. In their presentations, the girls opted to focus on solutions, rather than problems. In St. Louis, Zina Kabylbek kyzy marveled at the use of Smart Boards at Webster Groves High School. Smart Boards are a type of interactive whiteboard which uses pro-jectors and special pens to make using interactive charts and graphics easy. Kabylbek kyzy thought of how much time could be saved for teachers by using this technology in her classes. However, smart boards are expensive, so she devised an al-ternative using just a projector, a computer, and a whiteboard, all tools her school already has. Daria Azina, presented her own approaches to community mapping that she modified from what she learned while visiting the University of Arizo-na. “If we don’t have something, it doesn’t mean we will stop,” she said. “It means we will use something we have.” Though surely sad to leave the United States, the exchange participants begin a crucial next chap-ter of their story: sharing their experience with others. Though they worked very hard to for this visit, they also represent scores of girls who have not yet come to the United States. The TAGs rep-resented them abroad, and now return with new knowledge, skills, and and lessons to share with them. In November, Kabylbek kyzy will reconnect with her host teacher in St. Louis, Nicholas Kirschman, in an online project with his students titled ―Cross Cultural Psychology,‖ and plans are under way for Amanda Zhaparova and Daria Azina to reconnect with their host schools later in this school year.

From Inspiration to Action: TAGs Present Plans to Bring Wisdom Home

TAG Zina Kabylbek kyzy explains her idea for emulating the smartboard technology in Kyrgyzstan’s schools

TECH AGE GIRLS

Thanks to the leadership and IT skills they gained during the Tech Age Girls process, a number of alumni have been accepted to universities around the world after graduating secondary school:

Aidai Asanbekova, a 2010 TAG Alumna is very active in her community, organiz-ing projects and events that make it a better place to live. Asanbekova re-ceived a Golden Certifi-cate, meaning that she

could get a place at any University in Kyrgyzstan with full scholarship to study. She decided, how-ever, to apply for International universities, to experience the educational system in another country, including the role of youth in communi-ty. Asanbekova was accepted into the Interna-tional Business and Economic Relations program at Boston University. “I want to work in the pri-vate sector… my dream is to open my own busi-ness. This is my short term goal, and in my long term goal I see myself in government,” shared Asanbekova.

Aidai Muratbekova is now studying at the Institute for Tourism Studies in Macau, China with a specialization in Hotel Management. After the participa-tion in TAG pro-

ject, her IT and leadership skills helped to do a lot of research on where to study and where to look for scholarships. TAG trainings in goal setting definitely played a big role as she started plan-ning for her undergraduate studies right after the 2010 Tech Age Girls conference. ―Today, I realize how much I grew and improved with Tech Age Girls. All the skills and experiences which I have gained during the whole project help me succeed here, and believe me; life in China is not easy. My IT skills have helped me study.”

Aijarkyn Aisakhunova was accepted to the American University of Central Asia. Practicing her language during the TAG conference with Peace Corps Volunteers and learning how to write essays, she earned

very good scores on TOEFL (the higher education English language entry ex-amination) was accepted to the International and Comparative Politics program at the university. ―In the future I want to work in international or-ganizations; [though] for now I am not quite sure where, I want to work in the development sec-tor.” No matter which career they choose, each of the-se girls, like their fellow TAG alumni, are commit-ted to serving their communities and enriching the lives of those around them; TAG helped them get where they are today, and they all know they will return the favor by helping those around them as they continue into their adult lives. You can follow TAG through Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TAGKyrgyzstan and on Twit-ter at #TAGKG.

To all the teachers and families

who made this exchange such a

success, thank you. It could not

have been done without you.

Your hospitality as ambassadors

for America is the reason

exchange programs are so impact-

ful upon their participants!

Impact of TAG in Kyrgyzstan: Alumni Success Stories